Practice Courage

Greetings!

Just a quick note today.  I want to give you some encouragement to take with you this week.

I have a homemade note I wrote on a 3×5 card, and put at eye-level that everyone sees as they exit my therapy office.  The note is simply 2 words:  PRACTICE COURAGE.

Regardless of what my client and I were talking about, I want them to take these 2 words with them as they go back out into the world, because this is exactly what they’ll need to do in order to succeed–to face the things that will be coming at them.

Is there anything that you’re facing today, or this week, that you would prefer to put off and avoid?  Avoiding never works, does it?  

I get it, sometimes we need a break, we need space, and we need some “temporary” avoidance, and sometimes that’s ok, even healthy.  But there are things that will only create more and bigger problems if we don’t face them.

It’s about LEANING INTO rather than leaning away from.

Is there anything in your life today or this week that is best for you to lean into, that you’ve been avoiding?

Well, where does this idea of COURAGE come in?  As we know, FEAR–and I’ll also include anxiety–needs to be present if courage is to happen.

In other words, if something doesn’t create some level of fear in us (or anxiety), then we don’t even need courage.  We just need to engage with “the thing” in front of us.

But courage is moving forward in the face of fear.  It’s feeling the fear and moving forward anyway.

Ok, got it, simple enough.  But what about this idea of PRACTICING courage?  Why “practice”?

It’s just a REMINDER to keep in front of us, often, that today I have a strong intention to lean into my problems rather than away from them, and if the problems create some fear and anxiety for me, to keep moving forward despite the fear.

I need to remind myself of this everyday, because it’s easy for me to avoid things.  If I keep courage in front of me as “a practice”, I’ll develop more of a habit of quickly engaging with things that make me uncomfortable, or scare me, rather than avoiding them, and then eventually having a bigger problem.

I’m far from perfect at it, but I’m still working on it!  #practice

Now, there is one exception to this:  if the thing causing you fear is TRULY a threatening or dangerous situation, then by all means, listen to your fear and get away from the threat.  Keep yourself safe.

For this week, please join me in being intentional to PRACTICE COURAGE wherever it is important to do so in your life, personally, professionally, relationally.

The fruit of doing so is always well-worth the effort.

Until next time,

Sean

Chicago, IL

Curious about 1:1 coaching?

https://www.seanpatrickcox.com/individual-coaching/